


you forgot to bring your feathers (you look human, you look gentle, you look weak)

by Volts



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Character Death, Child Abandonment, Child Abuse, Child Death, Corporal Punishment, Depression, F/M, Families of Choice, Gen, Good Parent Jaskier | Dandelion, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loss of Identity, M/M, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Drinking, Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion, the last 5 tags relate to the flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26728537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volts/pseuds/Volts
Summary: He’d been the last Crane to complete the trials.He dressed in his lightweight, dark blue armour, mechanically. He trimmed his beard – it hid the scar running through his mouth, a little, at least.He took stock.4 limbs. 2 swords. 1 Witcher.The empty pit in his stomach gaped like a maw.Here we go then Jask, Julian, back on the path.xAfter a fight with bandits leaves Crane Witcher Jaskier without his glamour, he's forced back onto a Path he left 30 years ago and spirals down the same melancholic pit he'd thought he'd escaped. By chance he stumbles across the lost Princess of Cintra, and vows to take her to Geralt despite the unfortunate nature of their parting.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 58
Kudos: 594





	1. and this is how the monsters find me

**Author's Note:**

> None of this would have happened, Jaskier thought, if his stupid glamour hadn’t broken.  
> Fucking bandits.  
> He’d done the ‘helpless bard’ act, resigned himself to sleeping under the stars for a few nights and playing well into the small hours in the next town to replace what he’d lost, but then one of them had gone for his lute.  
> Oooh no. Noo no no no.
> 
> X
> 
> Fair WARNING this fic deals with heavy themes such as depression and sense of self. Please heed the tags.  
> > EDIT: 29/10/2020 I've been alerted to the fact that the flashbacks in this fic can be triggering (descriptions of Witcher training related child abuse) to some people. All the flashbacks are in italics and can be skipped without damaging any understanding of the story. Please skip if you need to, I will not be offended. If anything else is triggering, just let me know so I can tag it. 
> 
> X
> 
> Fic title and chapter titles are from 'How Strange' by Robert Hallow and the Holy Men

None of this would have happened, Jaskier thought, if his stupid glamour hadn’t broken.

Fucking bandits.

He’d done the ‘helpless bard’ act, resigned himself to sleeping under the stars for a few nights and playing well into the small hours in the next town to replace what he’d lost, but then one of them had gone for his lute.

Oooh no. Noo no no no.

Jaskier had won the ensuing tussle, of course he had, he wasn’t a babe, but in the process his ring fell off…

Well, he hadn’t been eating well of late. Heartbreak did that to you. And Witchers, technically, toed a fine line of being able to go for long periods without sustenance and needing more to maintain muscle mass.

His fingers were thinner, that was the point.

And the bandit, defending himself from the sudden appearance of a Witcher in bard’s clothing, had stepped back onto the ring. Cracking it.

Fuck.

Fuck.

FUCKKK!

So now he sat, on a boulder outside the nearest town, knowing full well that walking in there, dressed like this, was a recipe for disaster. Witchers didn’t go ‘round dressed in fine silks. He needed to get back to Kerack, back to the cave he’d buried his gear in.

Buying a glamour had taken him 5 years the last time so there was no hope for that. (And he didn’t pretend to be on good enough terms with Yennefer to beg a favour.)

With a dread pit in his stomach he settled his lute in her case.

Poor girl.

Maybe this is what he needed? A break from barding, a nice, energetic fight. Hadn’t had one of those in a while. He’d just have to duck his head against travellers until he had his swords.

X

Finding his armour still buried where he’d left it was a relief. His medallion. His grappling hook. His two short swords. His alchemy and crafting supplies.

He fingered the medallion.

Crane.

He was the last on the Continent, he knew. The Crane School had been sacked, a year before he’d acquired his glamour, by mages jealous of Witchers, just as they had been when they sacked Kaer Morhen and Kaer Seren. The survivors had rallied and set sail to a land rumoured to lie to the East over the Great Sea. They’d sent word, to see if he still lived, but well, at that point he’d been preparing to start his first year of university.

He’d been the last Crane to complete the trials.

He dressed in his lightweight, dark blue armour, mechanically. He trimmed his beard – it hid the scar running through his mouth, a little, at least.

He took stock.

4 limbs. 2 swords. 1 Witcher.

The empty pit in his stomach gaped like a maw.

Here we go then Jask, Julian, back on the path.

X

_Julian can’t believe it. He’s elated, bursting at the seams with joy. He looks down at the small, innocuous, ring in his hand._

_He longs to put it on._

_No, wait a moment, wait till you’re back in the inn with a mirror, he tells himself._

_He rushes from the mages house, shoulder checking at least 3 people in his haste._

_Usually it would bother him. He’d apologise, try to make them hate him less. It had gotten worse, these last 3 years. It hadn’t been brilliant before, people had shied away from him in the street, but since a rogue Wolf had massacred a Redanian town, people had gotten bolder._

_The Butcher of Blaviken. Mages. Fucking mages._

_The peasants had thrown rocks at him over the last 4 towns. He hadn’t been paid properly in months - he’d been lucky to gather enough for his glamour (if a ruby had_ fallen _into his pocket from a chest he’d recovered for a Baroness who was going to know it hadn’t been lost in the original theft?) This was the first time he’d slept inside in the last year._

_One villager had thrust a lit torch at him, burning his thigh._

_He’s taken to only travelling through towns at night, only talking to contract holders – which have higher casualty rates now people are reluctant to hire Witchers, yet people blame him for their idiotic son’s death, it’s not as if he told him to walk into a Wyvern nest –to innkeepers, or apothecaries._

_He’s been doing a lot of work for apothecaries._

_So, no he usually tries to avoid people, but now he has a mission._

_He heads straight to his room and locks the door. He removes his swords, his armour, and sits on the bed in just his shirtsleeves and braies. The mirror is propped up ahead of him._

_He slips the ring onto his ring finger, it’s a little big._

_A feeling akin to warm water washes over him. He opens his eyes – when had he closed them? – and looks._

_He doesn’t look_ too _different. A little less pale, he could blush maybe. His hair is still brown. But his eyes._

 _They’re blue. His eyes have_ always _had a little bit of blue it them, breaking up the yellow, but these orbs – what other word is there – are blue,_ blue.

 _They’re_ blue.

_Julian finds himself smiling, something he’s not done in a while. He hasn’t felt like it for a few years, as his everyday actions soured, and his social interactions all were crammed into a 3 month period. Even prostitutes too afraid for him to consider a night of comfort. And the last year he’s not felt like much at all. His siblings were already gone, in the trials, but now everyone else violently ended by fearful mages._

_His home gone. His family._

_Now he could write to Oxenfurt. He looked young enough, without the beard and scars. He’d be one of the older students, in looks as well as actual age, but they taught_ poetry _there, and_ music _and rhetoric and_ everything.

_He’d enquired about enrolling in the Liberal Arts course and had gotten a favourable answer. Well Julian Alfred Pankratz had, he’s masking vaguely as his own son if anyone chances to ask. They, of course, didn’t know he was a Witcher. (He wonders vaguely what the current Viscount thinks happened to his cousin?)_

_Faintly he could hear his own heartbeat, his real on and the glamoured one, 3 times as fast._

_He was going to sleep like this tonight. Human. True he felt so anxious he could hardly move but the trudging endless drudgery of The Path now had a rainbow paved split. And he was going to follow that road._

_He wanted to create, not kill. Make a name for himself. (He should choose a new name)._

_Be loved._

_If he had to be a Witcher it one more day he’d –_

_Well, he’d thought about tossing his sword to one side and letting the next manticore or siren just snuff out his dimming, hollow, choked life. Maybe Rita would be waiting for him. Or one of the other countless others passed on and far more deserving of life than he._

_He_ could _go with the others, he supposes. Go with Master Aldric and Bran, both men who’d whipped him as a child. They’d be setting off soon, to the east._

_Only a handful left. It was his duty, the letter said. His duty to what? His school? His friends._

_Artem was dead, the letter had said. Linusz and Karolina too._

_He should have been there, he couldn’t go with them._

_He’d be digging his own grave._

_He’d have to buy some clothes. What was the fashion nowadays? Were puffed sleeves in or out? Were codpieces? Buttons? Long hair? Moustaches? He was so behind. He used to pay attention to things like that._

_He’d go to Craag Caer one last time. Say a prayer for his friends on the clifftop, bury his swords and armour. Shave. He’d put his glamour on._

_And then he’d set off, ready to arrive for the summer term in Oxenfurt._

_~_

_Sitting in the cave mouth, wearing his newly bought clothes, he felt at peace. He’d gone for a green ensemble; doublet and trousers with a white shirt, chemise. He shaved his face, he hadn’t been this smooth for years._

_He runs sword calloused fingers over his cheek and a ‘zing’ of elation runs down his spine._

_Now to Oxenfurt._

_To making music and friends he can see all year around._

_To freedom._

X

Cranes specialised in Sea and Sky monsters.

Jaskier dived as the Royal Griffin swooped low. It missed him, he jumped up. He swung his grappling hook fast in a circular motion to build up momentum then let go. It soared at the Griffin and hooked around it’s back left leg. He pulled, his feet skidding slightly.

The Griffin crashed to the ground and, as it did so, Jaskier jumped onto it’s back and stabbed it in the side, going through the heart.

That had been his 6th attempt, the first 4 he’d missed hooking it, the 5th he’d been bucked off from a height, dislocating his shoulder as he landed ill-elegantly on the hilltop.

He’d been 7months back on the path.

The worst part was the company, or rather lack of it.

He understood why Geralt talked to Roach so much. He and Pegasus weren’t quite there yet – the grey gelding rather liked stopping to chew the scenery, much to Jaskier’s annoyance.

He’d had an awful lot of contracts for Drowners. A nest of Harpies. His first contract had been a… reef? Shoal? of sirens which had unfortunately ended in burnt sirens, several lost crossbow bolts, and numerous belly-up fish from an overzealous bomb. The extra fish had pleased the fisherman and had fed him for several days, even as they short-changed his payment.

Maybe he should get a bard. Essi probably wouldn’t mind him drumming up a few pro-Witcher sentiments on his behalf.

Then there had been the lovely week he’d spent negotiating with mer-people for the contents of a shipwreck for a merchant in Cidaris. That had been a _good_ break.

Jaskier yanked his silver sword out of the Griffin side and dismounted. Cranes weren’t as muscly or strong as Wolves or Bears, they were built for agility and swimming and for quickly grounding winged creatures and darting in.

His muscles ached. His recently relocated shoulder throbbed.

He set about removing the Griffin’s head from it’s shoulders. He’d cut away some raw meat to preserve and sell the next time he came across a receptive trader (or eat if his stores and coin fell low). The feathers he could sell or use to craft some crossbow bolts for precision hunts. If he had time, if the rain held off, he could take time and extract mutagens for his potions.

A figure came to a stop at the periphery of his vison as he was pulling out the last of the feathers. He felt awful, a hollow aching, as he desecrated this beautiful creature who had the misfortune of straying into human territory. (Never mind they’d driven the Griffin out of its original territory.)

“You’re too late,” he said. It was one of Geralt’s brothers, Eskel or Lambert.

“The alderman said you’d been gone awhile. He got worried.”

Jaskier scoffed, “Worried. Right. Well, sorry to disappoint. I managed just fine. I suppose, in good faith, I could buy you a pint but, I’m sorry good sir, this contract is mine.”

Half of him didn’t want to talk to Geralt’s brother but an ordinary conversation without his partner stinking of fear would be nice.

He picked up the head from where it was bleeding out on the grass and wrapped it in one of his bardic chemises to hang off Pegasus’ saddle. He wrapped the meat in waxed paper, put the feathers in his alchemy box, and stowed it all in his pack.

“Eskel, School of Wolf,” Eskel held his arm out.

“Julian of Kerack, Crane.” They shook. Eskel had several slashes high on the right of his face.

“Haven’t met many a Crane?” Or any, no doubt.

“I’m the last. The last on the Continent at least. But enough of that -” Jaskier took Pegasus’ reins in hand and Eskel fell into step with him as they walked down the hill.

An hour later they sat in the tavern. A substandard bard was ruining Her Sweet Kiss, hamming it up, turning the singer into a joke.

Well, he was now, he supposed.

The beer is shitty, the bread is the wrong side of stale, and the cheese is hard but Jaskier had learnt not to be picky.

From the age of about 7 right up to when he’d acquired his glamour, he’d gotten used to eating worse than this, mealtimes at the Craag Caer often a reward for good work or set as a test of resourcefulness. You performed well, you ate well, and Jaskier hadn’t been the best student, the best fighter – not at first – but he had been good at sneaking food from other’s plates and directly from the kitchen. He’d been whipped when caught, but it had just incentivised him to get better rather than eat the bland broth (consisting of mushrooms, herbs and moss) eaten at every meal. Or fish, when they’d completed the 2nd trial they got fish too.

As he ate he realised Eskel was assessing him.

Made sense. Cat’s were smaller, more agile. Bears were huge. Vipers had… well Jaskier had never met a Viper, they could be 2 metres long, all spine, and venomous for all Jaskier knew. _Hm, that could work… a Wyrm defeated by a Wyrm, cursed maybe…_

Except he wasn’t a bard anymore He had no audience, his notebooks were filled with crafting compounds, alchemical recipes, exchange rates, and a half-remembered bestiary. His lute was buried in his Kerackian cave.

Jaskier thought about his appearance. Shoulder length brown hair, a well kept beard hiding a scar that bisected his mouth, another scar just missing his right eye ran above his cheekbone and a small one cut into his eyebrow. The rest of his body had more but Jaskier the Witcher was more buttoned up than Jaskier the bard.

His eyes were a butter yellow surrounded by his old pale blue; it hadn’t faded entirely with the Trials. Well, Jaskier supposed, Crane mutagens were allegedly filled with more siren mutagens than other schools. Good for swimming, increased lung capacity – helpful for renowned bards and lovers also – underwater vision and an immunity to a sirens’ scream.

“Please take your fill. Across the county I am known for my vanity, please satiate it before it sickens and dies.”

Eskel laughs.

Wow, a laugh on day one. Stoicism must be a Geralt’s thing.

~

That winter, Lambert bought news to Kaer Morhen that Geralt was sulking and wouldn’t be hibernating with the rest of them, and Eskel bought the news he’d met a Crane Witcher. Vesemir had been interested, the Cranes were supposedly extinct on the Continent. Eskel had done his best to relay all he knew despite the conversation comprising mainly of self-depreciating flirts, theatrics and, after several ales, a recount of a week of paradise with a Mer community off the coast of Creyden.

X

Geralt probably wouldn’t recognise him now, Jaskier mused, viewing his visage in the grubby Inn room mirror. The beard and hair parting changed the shape and proportions of his face, hiding his mouth and showing his forehead. His eyes were the wrong colour. His nose was the same but that was about it.

His bardic clothes had been designed to disguise the broadness of his shoulders, to make him look shorter and more wiry than strong. Once he’d walked up to a sitting Geralt and seen a confused flash of surprise at how much Jaskier was towering over him. They were practically the same height.

The clothes he wore as a Witcher did no such thing. It made his skin crawl. His missed having the funds, the profession for making himself look good. True he kept his beard trimmed and well maintained, and he used as much soap as he could afford. But he was confined to blues, blacks and browns. If people would accept a bard with yellow slitted eyes, with scars on his face, then he’d shave right now and revert to his previous profession.

But times hadn’t changed that much. He’d look even more of a ‘monster’ out of uniform. There was one thing for a Witcher to be in armour, that was only right and proper, but one in silk?

Jaskier isn’t much looking forward to seeing Geralt again. It wasn’t as if Geralt had ever asked about Jaskier’s past, who is parents were, where he’d studied (he had _actually_ gone to Oxenfurt thank you very much).And he must have noticed the glamour, probably had written it off as a wrinkle concealer, but he must have noticed it!

Also, if Geralt would know him by sight at all, then he sure as hell wouldn’t recognise him by scent of the beat of his heart. The glamour had given Jaskier a human heartbeat and blocked out any mutation scents. Jaskier probably smelled a mix of his old self and siren guts or something.

He wanted to play again. He could compose till his fingers went numb but the energy of a crowd, a receptive audience, was something he missed. Killing monsters, and adrenaline rush, a satisfaction of a job well done, only barely fulfilled him.

He was a social man but being charismatic meant fuck all if people were prejudiced, nowadays it just led to unease.

Empty. He felt empty.

The high he’d felt from dispatching the basilisk melted as soon as the alderman paid him with disgust. At least he wasn’t being run out of town. His song was good for something at least.

X

Geralt left Roach in the stables, under the anxious eyes of the stable boy, whilst he went to secure a room.

“You won’t find work here, Witcher. One of your kin came by a few days ago and sorted our problem out,” the Innkeep said as he found Geralt a key.

“Another Witcher?” Geralt asked, hopeful that Eskel or Lambert might be in the area.

“Yeah, I didn’t talk to him much, but my daughter Agnes did, AGNES?!”

Agnes came over, she was about 40 with black curls tied up in a topknot and bright brown eyes.

“This here Witcher wants to know about your Witcher.”

“Oh, give over, Da!” She blushes at her father’s teasing.

“What was he like?” Geralt asked, surprised at the lack of fear on the young woman.

“Oh, he was tall. About your height. Brown hair. Beard. Uh, said his name was Julian.”

Geralt had never heard of a Julian.

“What school was he from, did he say?”

“Oh yes. I asked him, ‘cause I’d heard of Wolves and Griffins. He said he was a Crane. I said I’d never heard of no Cranes and he said that’s because most of them left to find an Eastern Continent about 30 years back. He’d got left behind,” she paused for breath, “He was very polite, let me ramble on about the harvest festival – everyone around here’s got sick of me – quite chatty too, once you got him going. I though you all were strong and silent types. But he seemed happy to talk my ear off about a play he’d once seen in Temeria. If I weren’t happily married – my husbands the blacksmith, mention me and he’ll do you a deal – I’d have certainly taken him to bed.”

It was only 2 decades of parsing through Jaskier’s rambles that allowed Geralt to follow Agnes’ stream of eloquence. It had been a year since the dragon hunt.

“Agnes!” her father was scandalised.

“He was _lovely_ , Da’, once you got past the armour and the eyes. A little lonely, travelling alone like that.”

“Did he complete the contract?”

“Oh yes. You can see for yourself. It was a Kelpie, he said. The teeth are in a bucket by the back door. The alderman wanted nothing to do with them, squeamish he is, tried to make out they were _horse_ teeth, but _I’ve_ never seen a horse that big. The Witcher threatened to leave the whole skull on his doorstep if he didn’t pay the proper amount; I’ve never seen old Marius go that pale that fast before,” Agnes giggled.

“Thank you,” Geralt said, because he didn’t know what to say. He’d never met a Crane Witcher before, there hadn’t been many – it was rumoured that one of their trials involved trapping the trainees in a cave at low tide and having them survive until the next low tide, presumably in the company of underwater monsters, as the tide rose to fill the cave. Vesemir said that most drowned – and then mages had attacked the school. The survivors had supposedly set sail for a world rumoured to be across the Great Sea.

“Only one room, Witcher?”

Geralt nodded, paid, and went to fetch his packs from Roach.

X

_Julian was bored. He’d been doing this for hours now, circling the lagoon._

_Run along the rocky cliff flat above the school - past the descending path to the doorway ( also past the lighthouse – he only stopped for a moment to see the goats) - along the cliff until he had to slide down the cliff into the before swimming towhere the sharp ridge of rocks started, climb up the exposed-at-the-low-tide sharp ridge that extended theright curve of cliff, and closed the lagoon, run along and climb up it until it petered out into the cliff flat and until he reached the lighthouse againto complete circuit._

_And then he’d do it again._

_And again._

_And again._

_Until higher tide covered the rocks turning the inlet into a lagoon and left it deceptively horseshoe shaped and he would just have to swim._

_Or until Bran took pity on him._

_Bran’s whistle called him back as night was falling._

_Julian’s feet were bloody and his arms ached. His back was stiff from this morning’s punishment._

_“Have you learnt your lesson?” Bran asked him from where he was perched on the lintel above the reinforced doors, smoking a pipe. Water just lapping at the base of the door._

_“Yes, sir,” Julian lied as he hauled himself out of the water onto the doorstep._

_“Good,” Bran said with a raised eyebrow, jumping down, “and what lesson is it that you’ve learnt?”_

_“Not to stowaway on Karolina’s boat.”_

_“Good.” (Next time he’ll stowaway in Agata’s, she wasn’t as observant as Karolina, he might make it to the Yaruga before they realise)._

_“You made your choice, Julian. You completed the first trial. You can’t run now,” Bran reminded him._

_True but if Julian had known saying ‘yes’ in The Choice would mean more training and eating soley moss and seaweed he might not have agreed. He wanted to get_ going _._ See _a monster fight. What was the point of living by the ocean if you never got to see a sea battle?_

_“Yessir.”_

_“Good, now get along to supper. I want 2 more pages off the bestiary copied out before tomorrow. Up at dawn for drills.”_

_Julian groaned, drills were always finished with another circuit of the horseshoe – shipwreck’s noose the older students called it for the amount of ships that dashed onthe jagged rocks, missing the small aperture that granted safe passage into the lagoon._

_“None of that. Now go,” Bran’s voice brook no argument. He might say everything personably but he wasn’t a pushover. If the pages weren’t done, Julian’s back would be bloody by tomorrow noon._

_Julian trailed into the keep, up the stairs, into the dining hall, and sat at the end of the table were his 6 other fledglings – as they were nicknamed – were sitting. They ranged from Julian, 11, to Serena, 14._

_The other students, 5 in total, who’d passed the 2 nd or 3rd trials, sat on the other table. And there was Artem, who’d recently just passed the final trial and was about to set out on The Path once he’d finished building his own boat._

_“Saved you this,” Rita whispers, and presses a whelk into his hand, illegally obtained from the kitchen. Julian ate it quickly before starting his, cold, moss, and seaweed soap._

_“Thanks.”_

_“How many loops did you do?” Timothy said, he’d started on his bowl of salad._

_Oh great. More moss._

_“17,” Julian said, mouth full._

_“I did 18, once,” Timothy gloated, “In drills.”_

_Piotr elbowed him and whispered to Julian, “Do you want to skip stones tonight?”_

_Julian shook his head,” I’ve got to do 2 more pages.”_

_Piotr shrugged sadly but moved to ask Serena about the plait she’d done to hide to scar she had gained from training. Knowing Julian’s luck, if he went to skip stones in the caves tonight, they’d all be caught and hauled in front of Master Aldric for a whipping._

_So when they all went to hammock, ready to sneak out later, Julian conspicuously sat up in the classroom under Artem’s watchful eye, writing up all the monsters beginning with ‘M + N’, laboriously copying out the words of Witcher’s old._

_He must look especially dejected because Artem claps him on the back, with a strength that rattles his lungs, and says, “Don’t worry, lad, after the storm, the air is always cleanest.”_

_Julian doesn’t think so, the air may be cleaner, but the rocks always have parts of ships splintered over them._

_It was all a matter of perspective._

X

Jaskier had that morning finished a Werewolf hunt, sad business really, and now settled down to drink a wine happily more grape than vinegar, when a weird sense of not Déjà vu but something similar came over him.

He looked up from his drink.

A young bard, about 19 or 20 years old, stood before him practically vibrating with excited nerves, twisting a feathered cap in shaking hands.

Well this was… uncanny.

“Master Witcher, sir. Uh. My name is Teodor, a _humble_ bard. I. Can I sit and ask about your adventures?”

Well he was politer than Jaskier had been, and Jaskier _was_ a Witcher. Maybe that’s why Geralt had tried to shake him off, he hadn’t acted human enough.

“I ask in homage to my Professor at Oxenfurt, who travelled with the White Wolf for many years until his untimely death. I do but wish to carry on his work.”

Wait, Geralt was dead?

“Geralt’s dead?” he asked blankly, grief loom like a wave above his battered boat of a heart.

“N-no. I meant my Professor. The bard, Jaskier? No one’s heard of him in a year. He did not return to teach in the winter. Or send word.”

Had it really been a year? They thought he was _dead?_ Jaskier had to fight back the urge to laugh.

He recognised Teodor now - though thankfully the recognition did not go two ways – a decent lyricist, a good singer and an enthusiastic lute player, not exactly the best player but he played with spirit.

“No, by all means, please sit. I will do my best,” Jaskier, Julian, found himself saying. Jaskier was dead, evidently, as was Professor Pankratz.

Another hole, another hope, torn from him. He’d been putting money from each contract to one side in the hope of buying a new glamour. Even if he achieved that it seemed he couldn’t go back to being Jaskier. He could, he suppose, write some letters, say he was laying low from the war. But that would probably have people looking for him, he thought glumly, people from Oxenfurt’s ‘Faculty of Most Contemporary History’.

“You must have seen some fights, in your time,” Teodor asked timidly, sitting down opposite him.

“I have,” Julian sat up. If he could sing he could tell tales, “How about the time I took down a Sea Serpent in Skellige?” and if he exaggerated a little, well, who was to know?

Teodor left a few hours later, probably a little disillusioned – Jaskier the bard had always made Witchers into heroes, magnificent and powerful (influenced _not at all_ by his love for Geralt) and, well, Julian was just a man with a job who could tell a good story and wasn’t used to himself being the subject of ballads. The last person who’d written _him_ a song had been Valdo Marx and it hadn’t been complimentary.

Teodor, thankfully, didn’t try and follow Julian around. He’d probably do well at festivals and eventually settle into a court in his old age.

Julian moved on, the Patch stretching, endlessly, in front of him.

X

Of course it was hardly no time at all before Geralt crashed into his life, figuratively, though, not literally. It had been an ordinary day of drudgery, slowed to a plod on Pegasus’ whim (Axii was _helpful_ but he couldn’t use it all the time). Yesterday he’d dispatched a noonwraith in an orchard (Why was it always orchards? Or wells? Why?) and today he’d had enough coin to buy breakfast. Well if a watery bowl of oats -skimmed from Pegasus’s feed - supplemented with pieces of apple (also shared with his lazy friend) counted as breakfast. The problem of late had been battlefields crawling with necrophages but no one had the money or courage to pay a Witcher to sort it out (and Julian wasn’t mad enough to approach a Nilfgaardian soldier about a contract, he’d only just got away from the last patrol wanting information about a ‘white haired Witcher’).

A scream broke the cool morning air. He jerked towards it instinctively. It sounded like a child.

He dismounted and ran towards the noise.

Pushing his Witcher senses forward he sensed a Kikimora in shallow water. Julian drew his silver sword.

He entered the clearing. A second Kikimora lay dead several feet back, _oh shit a mated pair._ Julian jumped into the fight. Sword in right hand, he pulled out his grappling hook from his belt with his left.

The Kikimora lunged at something, the child? and the child threw themselves backwards uncoordinatedly and overbalancing.

Julian built up momentum with his hook and launched it towards one of the Kikimora’s back legs, catching it, and pulling...

Julian pulled, distracting the beast from the girl (who had successfully scrambled back to avoid the swiping monster’s talons).

Hastily Julian dove towards the trees, avoiding the snapping maw. He yanked and wrapped the chain around the tree. Now, one of three things would happen:

a)The Kikimora would pull the tree down

b)The Kikimora would snap the chain

c)The Kikimora would pull it’s own leg off to escape

Jaskier just had to kill it before the first two.

He. just. had. to. get. under. it.

He slashed, trying to get under the creature.

Missed.

Of course, the perfect way to kill a Kikimora was to lie in wait until it was practically on top of you and get it from below. Julian had been unfashionably late to the fight.

The Kikimora attacked, Julian took his chance and dove and stabbed upwards with all his strength. The sword lodged in the soft underbelly. Julian pulled, gutting the creature. Viscera coated him as the Kikimora screamed above him and collapsed, crushing him.

Aw fuck, he’d bathed _yesterday._

He shoved the carcass off him, prodded the cut on his eyebrow, collected his sword, cleaned it perfunctorily on his trouser leg but did not re-sheath it. Whatever killed the first Kikimora could still be here. He extended his Witcher senses but all he could sense was the unbothered thump-thump of Pegasus’s heartbeat and the fluttery song-bird-rattling-the-bars-of-it’s-cage heartbeat of a young girl.

Who was holding a dagger in front of her, aggressively pointing at him.

Oh.

She was the spitting image of Pavetta.

Cirilla, the child surprise.

He eyed her carefully, eyes surreptitiously looking at the first dead Kikimora. The girl could probably kill him, not with that paper knife, but if she had her mother’s gift…

She looked like she was barely standing, exhausted.

Julian caught her as she fainted.

Right, well, what did he do with a child? He’d been on the path 12 years before he’d acquired a glamour (5 of them saving for said glamour).

Then he’d met Geralt 6 years later – cue 22 years of travelling together. All in all Jaskier was over 60 years old and had no idea what to do with a child. (Teaching at Oxenfurt barely counted).

Well, removing her from a formerly Kikimora infested swamp would be a first idea.

Usually, after taking down a Kikimora, Jaskier would gut the creature for parts to sell to an apothecary after removing the head. As it were, he carried the girl, Cirilla – if he remembered correctly from the birth announcement – to Pegasus. He set her down by the horse, doubled back for the Kikimora heads, next town might pay, he never knew, and picked up and re-sheathed his hastily discarded sword.

Right.

He wrapped the heads, hung them from Pegasus’s pack, hoisted the princess into the saddle and got up behind her before she could fall off. They wouldn’t make it to town tonight, but he could make camp somewhere sheltered at least.

They rode steadily for about half an hour before Julian found a suitable campsite. He lay her gingerly on his bedroll – he’d sleep on the floor, even as a bard he’d done that plenty-a-time – and untacked and brushed down Pegasus more hastily than the horse deserved. Then he set about starting a fire, arranging dry wood, and casting Igni. Absently he found himself humming the ballad he’d written after the Cintran ball.

When he’d finished making the fire he set the two fish he’d been given following this morning’s contract, poor man hadn’t had all the coin, on a rock to grill and set about mending his long neglected spare blanket. He mainly kept it for Pegasus and it had a hole in it, more of a window honestly – a rip Jaskier could get his whole head through. _That’ll be another bardic doublet sacrificed for patching_.

He was still comprised mainly of swamp water; he’d deal with that first. There was a stream not far away, he could hear it bubbling away, but he couldn’t very well leave the Princess to wake up alone in a strange wood. So instead he very quickly ducked behind a tree and changed into his spare shirt and breeches. The shirt was more formfitting than his chemises, less likely to get caught when on a hunt, and his breeches a dark navy to match his spare lightweight, unadorned sleeveless doublet. (It felt strange having his chest buttoned up, not completely to the top – he hadn’t lost himself entirely - but have his arms only thinly dressed. He much preferred his now muddy gambeson).

He wiped off his leather breast plate, the matching vambraces, and his boots – sitting barefoot for a moment. Cranes traditionally fought sea monsters with form fitting breeches and shirts made out of a stretchy fabric but when the keep had been destroyed and the last, almost last, of the Cranes had left, they had taken the formula for crafting the special fabric with them. (Which meant that Julian inevitably fought underwater in waterlogged clothes).

There was a stuttering heartbeat as Cirilla awoke but tried to pretend she was still sleeping. Julian gave her the courtesy and carried on wiping off his boots – blood and swamp mud dirtying the rag.

Panic was bubbling his stomach. This was Geralt’s child surprise. Julian felt like ever so slightly like an imposter, especially since, the last time he’d seen Geralt, Geralt had, in his specially unusually eloquent way of his, told Julian the equivalent of ‘fuck off’.

Cirilla was ‘surreptitiously’ checking him over through a barely open eyelid; this girl was no spy. Well neither was Jaskier, his tenure with Oxenfurt’s spy department was mostly him charming his way into conversations he had no business being part of and his aural ability of telling when someone was lying, he’s always been told he’s as subtle of a brick through a window.

He hummed a bar of toss-a-coin – which he honestly hadn’t written to be self-serving but was sure thankful he’d thought of (he’d still been on the path when Blaviken had put the final nail in Witcher tolerance; 2 years later Craag Caer had been sacked and a year after that Julian had finally bought his glamour).

Cirilla sat up, slowly, a rock from the woodland floor grasped in her grimy hand.

“Who are you?”

Indecision brushes briefly at him, then: “My name is Julian. Of Kerack. I’m -”

“You’re a Witcher. Do you know Geralt of Rivia?”

“We-” _we travelled together. I love him. He hates me. I lied to him for 20 years_ , “We’ve met.”

“Where am I?

“Hm, you know what? I’m not sure,” he’d always been better at people than time or places, “I think Sodden may be North or North West of here, which means we’re not too far from Brokilon.”

“No. How did I _get_ here?” she hugged her knees.

“Uh. You don’t remember that bit? Right, well, I was minding my own business when I came across one small, tall?, Princess fighting not one but two Kikimoras. From what I understand you, uh, screamed one to death before passing out. I took care of the other one ina daring fight which, uh, probably isn’t something you want to hear about right now, but rest assured they are very much dead,” he reassured her, gesturing to the head sack, remembering village children calming down when the Witcher, he or Geralt returned from the fight to tell them the monster was dead.

She wrinkles her nose. Yeah, severed heads, not a fantastic opening.

“You know who I am?” she says warily.

“Yes. Princess Cirilla. I heard what happened in Cintra, my condolences,” Julian said thickly. A burning smell hits his nose, “Oh shit” and he quickly rescues the fish.

“Here you have the least burnt one. The fisherman assured me they were freshly caught yesterday.”

She took the fish warily.

“You know about my power?” She asked, both in interest and accusatorily – well who could blame her.

“I, uh, once witnessed, had the privilege to witness, your mother turn a ballroom into a whirlwind.”

“My mother? She could do this?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes. Your grandmother, Queen Calanthe, said something about her mother having a similar gift - though I’d always heard Queen Adalia heralded as a seer – but that is once again off the, ah, point…” he trailed off as she fixed a hard stare at him, “…your highness?”

“Why were _you_ at the palace?” She probably doesn’t _mean_ it to sound condescending, but it comes out like that anyway. Nobles. To think Julian, Jaskier, could have ended up just like them had his Uncle been less greedy for his newly dead brother’s title. (What easier way to get rid of his young nephew than to hand him to the next passing Witcher?)

“Well-” how to explain, “your grandmother wished to have a Witcher there. In case of … difficulties. I helped to provide such a service,” he’d unwittingly brought Geralt along, that’s what he’d done, albeit for the very real reason of angry cuckholds – a bard didn’t look too imposing after all.

“Grandmother hates Witchers. She says they take work from honest soldiers,” she says primly parroting, but also unsure – as if she’s recently seen Queen Calanthe knocked from her very bloody pedestal.

Jaskier, no not Jaskier – Jaskier’s dead, Julian just shrugged, soldiers were trained to fight humans. Witchers fought monsters (well, mostly, Cats could be paid to kill just about anyone) whether it be of the, well, monster variety or, less likely, the monstrous human strain.

They ate their fish. After the fish was gone, Julian got to his feet.

“I’m going to wash my clothes,” he picked up his shirt, trousers, gambeson, boots and wash bag, leaving his boiled armour leaning against the three, drying, “You’re more than welcome to wash up too, though I have no clothes that’ll fit you.”

She looked at him, still wary.

He left her there, then, turning back as if just remembering, “Fair warning, Pegasus is a lazy old mule who’ll fall asleep as soon as you try to steal him.” She had that look about her, Jaskier had often had the same urge and similarly sticky, sticky, fingers – though he’d never stolen anything as large as a horse before.

He walked in the cold leaf mulch, his feet curling under the pinpricks of frost.

He had just walked into the stream and started stripping, when he heard Cirilla get up from the forest floor and, after a pause in which she no doubt glanced at Pegasus in contemplation, before tripping through the forest, following Julian’s steps.

Julian hastily finished washing all parts of him that would be inadvisable and inappropriate for a teenage girl to see before hastily dressing.

Then he set about washing the Kikimora ooze? blood? ichor? and mud from his gambeson, rubbing soap diligently into the fabric. Geralt’s hands, his over sensitive hands, used to get numb when washing in icy waters. (Julian’s Crane hands were better mutated).

Cirilla tentatively washed her face in the ice waters with a small hiss at the temperature.

“We can pick you up some clothes in the next town, but meanwhile,” he handed her his bottle of shampoo, “for your hair. Though we should really see about dying it.”

She scowled at him. He rolled his eyes ( _‘Stop your boorish grunts of protest’)_ and started on his shirt and trousers.

“Why should I go with you?” She asks.

“Two makes company?” he pouts at her, trying to make her laugh – it doesn’t work, he’s not the bard anymore, “Then again misery makes company… and I’ve also hears two’s a crowd,” Geralt took _that_ one to heart, clearly-

“Can you take me to Geralt of Rivia?” she asks frowning.

“Well-”

“He’s my destiny,” and Julian deflates. She was right. He could actively search Geralt out, wherever he was, and get it over with, or travel on as normal and allow destiny to fuck him over once again.

“I can try, but- But,” he held a finger up, it was the hand still holding the laundry soap which diminished the effect, “Don’t expect too much. And I’ll have to take contracts too.” _The last time Geralt and I met, he told me he never wanted to see me again._

“Can you teach me?”

“What? To do laundry?” he asks confused, wringing his trousers out and laying them next to his shirt on a cleanish rock. He’d Igni the next cleanest rock to lay them on next, try to steam them a bit.

“How to fight,” and, looking up, Julian recognised that expression. It’s an exact replica of Geralt’s stubborn mulish face. A ‘planted feel in the ground’, no room to manoeuvre, _no Jaskier you cannot come to the contract_ , expression. Geralt, Julian had been able to get around; Cirilla, however, was raised to get her own way.

Julian could always refuse, tell her he’s in no position to teach her, let her know she’s not always going to get her own way…

_Liar. Coward. Cruel._

“Maybe,” he concedes, hiding a pout behind his curtain of hair.

She nods, self satisfyingly, combing her wet waves. He sighs and dunks his head under the water and begins to wash his own hair.

X

_A week after Linusz’s 90 th birthday he fought a Leshen in Eastern Redania, in a little heard of Viscountcy called Lettenhove. He wasn’t really the type of man, Witcher, to remember his birthday but he’d been born around the solstice, so it was difficult to forget. _

_He quite liked being a Witcher, he didn’t_ love _it, but he saw it as an alternative career to becoming a pirate and being eaten by a sea serpent, which is what had happened to his Dad when Linusz was about 8. The Witcher, Gregor, who’d eventually taken him in, had asked for the Law of Surprise as payment from the harbour master. The harbour master had returned to his office from watching the Witcher fight the sea serpent and found the newly orphaned Linusz asleep under the lobster pots outside his front door._

_3 weeks later Linusz and Gregor were in Kerack and heading to Craag Caer._

_Linusz, now 90, knocks on the back door of the Viscount’s manor. The cook opens the door, starts a little, eyes wide._

_“I’ve killed the Leshen, Madam.”_

_“I’ll. I’ll tell Master Alfred,” and she lets him in and bids him to stay in the hallway. She returns a moment later, “Master Alfred wants to see you.”_

_The Lord’s solar is panelled with wood and with shined floorboards._

_“Ah, Witcher,” the Lord says, rising from his armchair genially._

_“Where should I put this, sir,” Linusz holds up the skull._

_“On the desk. I’ll have it mounted tomorrow, have my people bleach it… but onto business,” the Lord raps on the door and Linusz hears a woman’s footsteps retreat from where they were watching on the other side._

_“Your pay,” The lord hands him a pouch of coin from the drawer in the desk. Linusz weighs it, it feels okay._

_“Thank you, my lord,” and he turns to go._

_“Wait a moment. There’s something else you could do for me. There’s a boy, in my charge. An orphan. I fear I cannot do anything for him here. Witchers’ take in boys, don’t they?”_

_“And girls, my lord, us Crane’s do at least.”_

_“Right,” the Lord waves away his reply, “but you’ll still take him, train him up?”_

_The footsteps return and a woman enters, carrying a boy._

_“What’s your name, Witcher?” the Lord asks quickly._

_“…Linusz,” Linusz replies, he’s not sure that any employer has ever asked his name._

_The Lord nods and takes the boy, about 6 years old, from the nurse._

_The boy looks sleepy, and squirms away from the Lord slightly._

_“Now, Julian. You remember what we discussed? About listening and obeying? And what would happen? Well,” the Lord’s voice is sugary sweet, sickly, dangerous, “This is Linusz. He’s going to take you to the Witcher’s. You go with him now.” The boy blinks blearily._

_And before Linusz can object, he’s not used to humans approaching him without fear – this Lord is too arrogant for that – the boy is dumped into his arms._

_Linusz’s arms come up automatically to stop him falling to the floor. The boy rests his head on Linusz’s shoulder. He’s been drugged, Linusz realises._

_“Go, Witcher, before I have my men chase you out. Here’s a bag of his things, now go,” the Lord’s blue eyes are cold._

_He can’t leave the boy here, can he? Not with a guardian like this? Feeling very unsure of whether he is doing the right thing, Linusz takes the boy, Julian, and leaves, beginning the slow trek back to Kerack._


	2. Oh everything i love in you, i hate in me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Crane School was in Kerack, in the cliff face. You had to practically abseil down the cliff to get to the entrance. Kaer Morhen is up a ravine if I understand.”  
> “We could go there?”  
> “It’s still a mess,” his lute is still buried in the cave used in the trials, “but I suppose it’s as good a place as any. We just have to wait there till spring then we can wait for Geralt.” That was 3 months almost, winter had set in early and the snowy mountains would stay icy a little while after. Luckily there were in South Temeria, all they had to do was ignore Cidaris, cross the Adalette (though it would be more sensible to sail down it) and from there they could lay low in Craag Caer.  
> Hopefully she’d be safe there, in dark, damp, halls entrenched with long-dried blood. 
> 
> X
> 
> Julian goes back to Craag Caer, trains Ciri, and regains parts of him he thought dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from 'How Strange' by Robert Hallow and the Holy Men

Travelling with Cirilla isn’t that different from travelling with Geralt, at first. Cirilla sits atop Pegasus, Julian walks.

They check into Inns sparingly, balancing safety with the health of a young girl unaccustomed to sleeping outside.

It’s on a night such as this, Ciri is sleeping as only adolescents can (dead to the world, thankfully no nightmares so far tonight) just upstairs, when destiny once again mixes up Witchers. Julian sits in the small taproom of the Inn, suffering with a bout of insomnia – he too is plagued with nightmares – when he gets the feeling he’s being stared at. He looks around.

Of course, destiny would bring them together eventually. Julian knew it was inevitable from the moment he looked up from his, surprisingly decent, soup in this Temerian tavern/inn, to find Yennefer of fucking Vengerberg staring at him intently.

“You remind me of someone, but I can’t for the life of me think who,” she says, puzzling him out.

Without thinking, he replies, “Well, with old age things do fade. Buildings, memories, looks.” _Fuck._

“ _Jaskier_?” She says, disbelieving.

“Surely _you_ knew I wore a glamour!” She’d healed him after all.

“I thought you were a fucking elf or a vain peacock, not a Witcher,” she said, sounding annoyed, which was fair. She sat down at his table.

“Can’t say I love the beard,” she commented, a moment later.

“Well, it’s not _your_ beard is it! I don’t tell you to – what in the name of Melitele is that smell?” he exclaimed as the smell hit him.

“Burn cream,” she said, angrily, oh dear gods he was doing well today.

“Right, well,” he drank more soup.

“Did Geralt know?”

“What? No. Oh no. I was trying to be human you see. Mostly worked. Can’t be a bard looking like this,” he said then, after a pause, “Devastatingly handsome, I know. You’ve done well to gird your loins at the sight of me.”

Her look was almost pitying.

The last year hadn’t been chaste, but he was a romantic at heart. He loved the human connection as much as the sex.

Romance died when the other partner was only there for the thrill of bedding a Witcher, and most people who would have given him a second glance before now smelt slightly of - if not fear then - apprehension. After all Jaskier, Julian, had done for the image of the Witcher, as a boon for humanity, it hadn’t stopped other rumours of a Witcher’s sexual predilections. Mostly false, as far as Julian could work out, Geralt had been a fairly basic-then-straight-to-sleep sort of man (not that he had any personal experience) and Julian himself was exactly as he had been with the glamour and people liked _that_ enough.

“So, what brings you here? I don’t think there are many Nilfgaardian armies here to burn, and I’m afraid if you were looking for _other_ entertainment, you are talking to the wrong Witcher entirely.” Not that he hadn’t thought about it. His most long-standing fantasy, since Yennefer had thrown herself into Geralt’s life, was walking past their room whilst they were in the throes of passion and being unceremoniously pulled in and promptly ravished by the pair of them.

“Why business is my own, little bird.”

“Pet names, now, dear Yennefer, I may get the wrong ide-aarrgh!” She’d stabbed his hand with her fork.

“Keep your voice down,” she growled, removing her, now bent out of shape, cutlery.

“If I were human that would have bloody well hurt!”  
“Nilfgaard is, surprisingly, not happy, I burnt on of their armies to ash. Don’t say my name again.”

“Alright. Alright. And while we’re at it, Julian of Kerack. Apparently Jaskier’s been dead for over a year,” he said bitterly, trying to shake out the remnants of his nightmares.

They sat for a moment in comfortable silence, then – “Well I can’t sit here all night. I’ve got places to be tomorrow.” She stands and turns to go. At the last second she turns back and says, “It was good to see you, Julian,” and she gave a small smile before going up to her room.

Julian downs his wine, finishes his soup, and goes to bed himself. Ciri in the bed, him on the bedroll on the floor.

To Julian’s immense surprise, Yennefer is still there when they emerged to set off the next morning.

“Give my regards to Geralt when you see him,” she said, as she mounted her horse, “Tell him to be careful. Nilfgaard are looking for him, and your charge.” She nods to where Ciri was hiding in Pegasus’s newly vacated stall.

“Take care yourself,” Julian said, pulling Pegasus’s head away from the Innkeeper’s apple tree and meeting her eyes.

“We’ll see each other again, little bird,” she said, turning her mount away.

“It’s been a pleasure,” and he found he meant it, no matter how awkward it was. He raised his hand in farewell and waved her off.

Jaskier, Julian, watches Yennefer ride away.

“You can come out now,” and Ciri creeps out.

“Come on, when next winter approaches, we’ll try and get you to Kaer Morhen. Geralt always goes home then, but we’ve missed this winter, he’ll already be holed up in the icy mountains of Kaedwen by now. The pass will be closed by now.”

“How?”

“Uh, avalanche?”

“What’s Kaer Morhen like?”

“It’s a stone Keep, I’ve heard.”

“But you’ve ever been?” She still hasn’t warmed up to him yet, and who could blame her?

“No. The Crane School was in Kerack, in the cliff face. You had to practically abseil down the cliff to get to the entrance. Kaer Morhen is up a ravine if I understand.”

“We could go there?”

“It’s still a mess,” his lute is still buried in the cave used in the trials, “but I suppose it’s as good a place as any. We just have to wait there till spring then we can wait for Geralt.” That was 3 months almost, winter had set in early and the snowy mountains would stay icy a little while after. Luckily there were in South Temeria, all they had to do was ignore Cidaris, cross the Adalette (though it would be more sensible to sail down it) and from there they could lay low in Craag Caer.

Hopefully she’d be safe there, in dark, damp, halls entrenched with long-dried blood.

X

Easier said than done, what with Nilfgaard looming, especially as they were travelling south. But 3 necrophage nests, 2 subpar, heart-breaking, renditions of Her Sweet Kiss, and 1 set of second-hand clothes for Ciri later, they arrive.

The demolished, ruined, tower stands above them; wind whipping at their hair. It’s biting cold.

He stables Pegasus in the ground floor of the tower – it was always a stable, mostly serviceable – the stairs that spiralled up to the lighthouse above was the first thing the mages had destroyed.

The actual keep was in the horseshoe shaped cliff which surrounded the keep’s wide lagoon.

He removed all packs and put them in an empty stall, he’d collect them when he had surveyed how liveable the school was.

“Where is it?” Ciri asked, when they stood on the cliff flat. He pointed over the cliff.

“Piggy-back time,” Julian remembered clinging to Linusz’s shoulders when he was brought to the school aged - well he must have been about - 6.

“I can walk.”

“Can you climb, princess?” She shook her head unsurely, “Well I can teach you, just not right now.”

She climbed upon his back and locked her arms around his neck, her heels digging into his thighs. She could probably walk the first bit herself but then it would be difficult for her to hop on with how narrow it was.

Julian, Jaskier, hates this. He’s never _really_ liked heights, despite his training.

He begins the descent.

The path starts shoulder width apart but quickly narrows to the width of his foot so he’s basically tightrope walking. He can just see the top of the door a hundred or so metres below, submerged under the retreating tide.

His foot is now only half on the ledge.

He’s going to have to rig up a hook and rope for future trips – deemed by his tutors as a security risk, and it turns out they had probably been right. The only other access to the door was by sea and to access that you had to risk dashing yourself on the sharp, shallow, rocks or falling foul to traps left by Witchers long deceased that also protected the inlet. A Witcher would ideally – leaving his things in the stable notwithstanding (few Cranes had horses, more had boats) – only bring with them what they could carry.

He reached out and found a crevice to support his weight then swung out and stepped onto a jutting rock with his right foot.

Ciri tightened her grip and let out a small squeak as they were suspended over the sea. He carefully climbed down. Even breathing; from on sturdy handhold to the next.

Soon they were on the ledge above the door. It had widened out a bit since Julian was a trainee, 30 years of erosion allowed him to set Ciri down on the lintel.

“Now what?” She squeaked.

“Now we get down,” he jumped, landing wetly on the slippy flagstones that marked the large doorstep in front of the door (a metre to his left and he’d have plunged into icy waters). He held his arms aloft and nodded for her to jump into them. She did so with a determined clench of her chin.

He set her down gently, her ‘new’ shoes thankfully waterproofed with tar.

The great double door, at least 12 foot high, is still hanging off it’s hinges, as it had been left by the last Crane Witchers. Julian didn’t know why he had had left his bard things in the trial cave when he could have brought them here, and probably picked up a whole bunch of useful stuff at the same time, except that when he abandoned The Path he had sailed to the cave directly from the school, applied his newly bought glamour and outfit, buried his things, then sailed up to Poviss where he’d abandoned both the boat and the life of a Witcher.

The entire entrance hall is flooded, ankle deep in water.

“Right let’s find the kitchen?” The kitchen is in the top layer of the keep, with a wide chimney flue releasing smoke to the cliff side. It’s covered in dust. And obviously there are no food there.

“Right.” So they go to the bedrooms, also in the upper layers. These are mostly serviceable. Dusty as everything and some haven’t been tidied after the ransacking but better than expected. (The dorm rooms are in a similar condition, bunks and hammocks dusty and rotting slightly due to the moist air but not infested with anything worse than bedbugs).

The library, of course, is a wreck. The mages had stolen anything magical and burnt everything else. Thankfully what’s left is free from flooding, the library being above the entrance hall. This cannot be said for the labs which have, like the library, been reduced to ash but are also filled with water. Julian can’t help but think this is a good thing.

The school rooms and training rooms are flooded - the actual carved out rooms that is – but Julian remembers how to work the pipe system that drains the rooms out into the sea. The desks are unsalvageable, rotted away after so long, as are the reserves of ink and paper. The caverns under the school, the largest training ‘rooms’ expanded directly from the naturally occurring network of caves hollowed out at the base of the cliff. They are as large as the keep above it and are still mostly in one piece though the largest training ground had been transformed into a memorial for all the Witchers lost in the raid, their names carved onto the wall, their ashes scattered at sea. Julian takes a moment to note and remember Linusz and Artem, who’d both been good to him. (The children, his _friends_ , who died in the trials had not been granted the same courtesy, merely burnt, scattered and forgotten). The armoury is, thankfully, as it was. It’s fully stocked – those who had left had taken what they could carry, leaving weapons used by the dead - and the charm keeping the room bone dry is still holding.

It makes a sober homecoming.

X

_Julian and Rita stand on the cliff top, looking down at the inlet. Just around the corner was the cave system they’d be trapped in for the next few days_

_“It’ll be easy,” Julian says, not sounding confident at all, “Go in, wander around a bit and come back with the head of something horrible and violent.”_

_“Can you not be an optimist? For 5 minutes?” Rita says, “Serena’s dead. So’s Piotr. Timothy. Anwen. Hewel.”_

_“But we’ll survive. We survived the trials!”_

_“One more to go. The last student to survive was Artem.”_

_Out of the last two classes only the two of them remained. Artem had been the only one to out of his survive his class._

_The next morning Bran and Master Aldric met them at the cave mouth. Rita and Julian were dressed as if they would be on the Path. Tight lightweight shirt, light armour, light boots and braies, made out of stretchy Crane material._

_Steel and Silver swords loaned, from the armoury._

_“One of us will be up there,” Bran said, pointing to the cliff top, “We’ll wait 7 days. Come back with a trophy.”_

_He shook hands with the both of them. Master Aldric nodded at them and said, “Good luck, fledglings.”_

_And they walked into the dark cave, sloshing in the sea water. Their yellow Witcher eyes adjusted with the change in light._

_There was a fork._

_“You go right. I’ll go left?” Julian suggested,_

_Rita smiled at him anxiously, then pulled him for a quick hug. “I’m going to the middle,” she said, ”See you on the other side.”_

_Except he didn’t. He swam out of the cave system 8 days later, clutching the wing of a Harpy and gasping gin the fresh air. He’d survived the high tides by clinging to roofs of caves, hiding in high pockets – some of them Harpy infested- and holding his breath for hours._

_Rita wasn’t waiting for him. She said she’d wait._

_She said she’d wait._

X

The first night is cold, though Julian demolished a woodworm eaten bed and straw mattress, miraculously still dry and whole, and burnt it in the fireplace of the top master’s study - the warmest room.

They slept on the floor that night.

The next day they start about setting aside rooms for them to sleep in. The top floor had been for older students who – due to the diminished numbers from the trials – had their own rooms. Julian picks the rooms he may have had before he left. Ciri picks the one next door, last used, if Jaskier remembers correctly, by Artem who’d been killed in the raid.

They spend the day moving dust under torch and mushroom light (the luminous mushrooms _were,_ before the raid, a Crane school secret). There are windows, but only on the curved outward facing wall, the thick waterproofing glass letting light in but not much else. The most important rooms were the ones with the natural light. (This is why Jaskier loves the summer sun and named himself after a flower).

(He’s one wrong word away from a breakdown).

Julian goes up the cliff to feed Pegasus.

In preparation for the next few months they clean out the kitchen, Julian tries to get the heating system working (pipes pumping hot steam around the caves) but is ultimately unsuccessful. They find clothes for Ciri, left behind by past students (dead. dead. dead.) and Julian begins putting her through her paces. She’s … good.

An eager leaner and when she uses the wall as a springboard and attaches herself to his back one training session (as if she’s about to slit his throat) he actually laughs.

He thought he’d forgotten how.

The ice is broken. Ciri learns how to scale the cliff and the rope Julian has set up with his grappling hook, every time she does, he has a heart attack.

Soon his mantra of just-until-we-find-Geralt gets forgotten amongst finding a mostly intact book on boat repair in the charred library, or going bomb fishing with her in a cave only accessible at low tide, or clearing out the crab infestation - and the remains of a water hag, hastily dealt with – in the basement.

He makes it his goal to inject fun into her life, so he sings again. Not _his_ songs, of course, but old songs he vaguely remembers his grandmother singing to him as a child, ones the older Witchers sang – tales of old hunts -, and hits made popular by Essi and Priscilla. Sometimes she laughs and pulls him to dance and it’s fun, it’s sun. Other times she sits next to him and they both think of what they’ve lost.

They eat an inordinate amount of fish, assorted seafood, and sea plants (no place for a varied diet when the nearest village is 3 days away over a very up and down rocky terrain), stay up far too late on the lintel (he’s trying to remember the constellations so as to teach her how to navigate by stars), and get soaked through trying to fix the last remaining boat.

It’s almost like being a father.

He feels disingenuous. Geralt should be doing these things, teaching her how to fight, to live off the land. He’d be better at it, too. Julian can teach her the theory of snares and traps but here on the clifftop there’s only the occasional rabbit. He can teach her how to sea fish or how to shoot down a seabird but how useful is that going to be on land? And _she_ saved _him_ from the injured siren beached on the rocks, when he slipped and dropped his sword, out screaming it loud enough to knock all three of them out.

He’s got too comfortable, living their quiet life, when he realises spring is approaching.

He realises whilst he’s shaving Ciri’s hair. Whilst lice avoid Witcher blood, they seemed to like Ciri’s head. They’ve tried smoking them out, dousing her hair in foul chemicals, but this is the last resort.

He’d just thought, ‘ _Nilfgaard wouldn’t recognise her like this,’_ when he realises that soon that is something they’ll have to deal with again. He breaks the news to her that night. She cries and he puts his arm around her, this was her first safe place since Cintra and now they’re leaving again. She falls asleep on his arm; he’s humming a lullaby.

They leave as soon as they’ve completed rehanging the front door. They leave via the newly repaired boat. Ciri is wearing the clothes of trainee Witchers and with her short hair she’s disguised as a boy-Witcher easily enough (though in fact the Crane school also accepted girl trainees). She even has a medallion, a spare found in the armoury and gifted to her. Julian felt it would be handy, alert her to any monstrous presences.

They’re sailing up the coast until they hit Redania, the boat is just big enough for Pegasus to fit whilst calmed with Axii, after which they’ll have to walk to Kaedwen, avoiding the huge mountain range, hopefully running into Geralt as he descends from hibernation.

But until they run into him it was life on The Path; asking discrete questions about other Witchers in the area. So far, no luck.

Ciri’s training was going well. She’d stabbed a double-crossing employer early on into their journey. He’d sent Julian right into a cockatrice nest on the pretence it was a basilisk, he hadn’t fallen for it but then he’d been set upon by a nesting mother and a dozen adorable-but-bitey babies. When he’d returned to the tavern he’d been covered in blood, bleeding out from the stomach, and frankly fucked off with the world.

When the Mayor tried to pay him half the price of a lone basilisk for a nest of cockatrices Ciri had kicked the man in the shin and it was only Julian’s hand on her collar pulling her back, as he tried not to faint against the bar, that stopped her from going further. (It was the Mayor’s son she stabbed, as they left town 3 days later - Julian’s intestines firmly held in by bandages – when he tried to rob them of their hard-earned money. He’ll have a limp ever more, Ciri’s knife entering his kneecap in a very painful place).

(She’d helped stitch him back together as White Honey removed the toxins keeping hm upright. Julian had heard her cry and pray to Melitele, heard her curse Geralt for not fulfilling his destiny; and heard her whisper threats at how she’d spread the most awful rumours of his death if he died right then).

They are heading vaguely eastwards toward Kaedwen, truthfully Julian hopes destiny will intervene in the form of a felled tree across one path forcing them in in one direction. It was hard going, both of them getting little sleep.

Julian, _Jaskier_ , Julian woke up most mornings covered in sweat. He dreams of being buried alive, at sea mainly, sinking into deep icy waters, the pinhole of light getting smaller and smaller as he drowned. He dreamt of suffocating – clawing himself up – into a cave? he didn’t know – he always awoke with the first shuddering breath of life, the phantom grind of sand falling off his fingers. He dreams of walking, buttercups lining he road, playing his lute, only no one can hear him and as he tried to get their attention the buttercups wilt and drip black ichor and his crowd cover their ears and chant ‘ _dead, dead, Dead, Dead, DEAD’_ and he wakes up, sobbing.

Ciri, he knows, dreams of Cintra, her trauma so much larger than one dead bard, one dead bard who’s not even dead. (He was just a dream really. A merciful respite but not _real_ ). She cries most nights, rejects offers of hugs, but doesn’t mind the lullabies he sings softly in their pitch black camps.

She’s still training, Julian wakes them both up with a quick work out. Generally, a work through their formations, a sparring session. Then breakfast. Then they test each other from the beaten bestiary they’d taken from Caer Craag. Julian had been trying to work out a ditty to help remember which creatures were vulnerable to what – much more easy for Ciri to learn from than pouring over the books for hours and having her hands caned or made to swim to the bottom of the inlet or run the jagged cliffs when incorrect. He hasn’t got very far, every time he starts a hollow opens up in his stomach and a wave of wrongness washes over him that has his eyes pinpricking with tears.

He’s well aware he’s suffering from a prolonged period of melancholia. He’s had this before, back when he was on The Path before his glamour. Even as a bard he’d had slumps, but he’d been _himself_ then, he’d liked what he did. The spark within him has dimmed. Occasionally he feels like his old self, when he meets someone willing to talk longer than general pleasantries, or when he sings to Ciri. It’s not even the clothes or the armour, it’s the way people flinch when he turns lightly - a little too quick for a Witcher but had been perfectly acceptable for a bard. Or when he smiles at someone and they see his teeth and eyes and move away.

The worst is when he catches sight of himself in a shiny object and doesn’t recognise himself immediately but then does. The cavern in his stomach opens and bloody and violent thoughts invade his mind – clawing his own face off, bashing his head against a hard surface until he feels elated and everyone can see how twisted up he feels inside.

The point is, the point is he feels low. So very low.

This isn’t his life.

They make a point to stop in towns. In one such tavern the landlady offers to give the ‘poor boy’ a haircut and all it makes _Julian_ feel is that he’s a failure.

(Jaskier-the-bard would have remembered).

Currently they’re in a forest somewhere in Lyria, Ciri is mending her tunic, Julian’s mending his. Night is rolling in.

“Where did you learn to sing?” she asks him.

“Oxenfurt,” because that’s where he was taught all the specifics on breathing and meter.

“ _You_ went to Oxenfurt?” and so he tells her, about his shitty glamour, his time as Jaskier, his travelling with Geralt.

As night falls he finishes, “– and then my glamour broke. Which just shows you can’t outrun destiny. I was, evidently, never meant to be a bard,” and he laughs humourlessly.

“Well, you must have been good if Grandmother let you play at court.”

“She hated my singing, actually,” Julian said, remembering the Queen’s derision over his slower songs and her displeasure over his jigs. It had been one night, but it had meant to be a good night. It _had_ led to Ciri sitting next to him right noe though.

“Well, I like it,” Ciri said, moving to sit next to him, leaning against his shoulder.

“Yeah, well. You’ve got good taste,” he says, unused to the praise after over a year with only and audience on 1, and he tries not to cry.

So, over the following months he carries on singing, he can’t compose yet, but he does walk past music shops and slow down a little wistfully.

Someone still likes his singing. This little bit of support powers him to make a bit of effort. He maintains his beard and hair regularly and takes time to make sure his armour is perfect. It doesn’t help a lot, but it does help. A little bit of Jaskier amongst Julian.

X

Eskel and Lambert have met quite by chance in Glelibol. They don’t usually meet so early in the year – they’ve grown sick of each other from spending 3 months stuck in a crumbling fortress together and this year Geralt hadn’t deigned to show, again, - stuck in Cintra when shit went down -and Cöen had been delayed by Nilfgaardian troupe movements in Nazair. This meant there wasn’t a buffer if the two of them got into an argument; Vesemir generally told them to spar it out, run the walls, or put them laundry duty for the week.

So no, Lambert hadn’t planned to meet Eskel in Northern Redania in, what was now, the end of spring.

But since they were here, they might as well drink a flagon of local, well whatever it was, alcohol after stomping through the wood looking for an infestation of rotfiends. It would mean half pay each, but it’d be done twice as fast.

They smelt the smoke of a campfire and the remnants of a horse trail before they came across a small camp. A … boy? about 12 or 13 sat sharpening a small sword. He? jumped as they entered the clearing and pointed the sword towards them. He seemed to know what he was doing more than most human boys his age did with swords.

“Stay back,” the boy’s voice hasn’t even broken yet, for fucks sake.

“You travelling alone, boy?” Eskel asks, politely.

“No,” the boy says, chin up and defiant.

Lambert’s looking around the camp. Horse nibbling at grass, completely unconcerned by the clearing’s intruders. Newly washed potion bottles that seem familiar. And is that - ?

“What the fuck have you got around your neck?” It looks like a fucking Witcher medallion.

“None of your f-fucking business,” the kid says, like he doesn’t swear that much.

“Where did you get it?” Eskel asks, putting his hand on Lambert’s chest like _he’s_ the fucking child.

“I was given it,” the boy doesn’t seem afraid, he doesn’t reek of fear more determination? Either he’d been given it by someone who’d killed a Witcher or one of the fucking school’s is restarting the trials, which Lambert _will not_ stand for.

X

Julian had dispatched the rotfiends, hopefully there will be a notice for them in the next town. He was just returning to camp when he smells two Witcher’s with Ciri, he’s downwind so he can smell them but hopefully they don’t notice him. One of them is Eskel.

He hears Lambert, presumably, ask Ciri about the medallion.

“Where did you get it?” Eskel asks, calmer than Lambert but still on edge.

“I was given it.”

“By a Witcher?” Lambert practically snarls.

“He’ll be back in a moment.”

Eskel’s peering at the symbol on the medallion – half tucked into the gambeson.

“A Crane… Is his name Julian?”

Julian decides to mitigate any problems that may arise and strides to meet them. Eskel relaxes a fraction. Lambert bristles like an angry housecat.

“Well met, Eskel.”

“Well met, this is Lambert.” Who still has his hand on the knife at his hip.

“Pleasure. This is -” fuck, what name? They hadn’t ever got that far!

“Eist,” Ciri says, scowling up at the two wolf Witchers

“-Eist.”

“Starting the trials again? I thought the Cranes were finished,” Lambert growled in disgust.

“Oh. Dear Gods no,” Julian said vehemently, realising what assumption Lambert had made, and with good reason.

“Then, what?” What are you doing dragging a teenage boy around on The Path?

“Law of Surprise,” Ciri cut in for which Jaskier, Julian, was grateful. These men may be Geralt’s brothers but Nilfgaard could torture them as easy as anyone.

“I’m an apprentice,” Ciri continued, “I’m going to be a Witcher.”

“But no trials. Wouldn’t even know where to start,” Julian finishes sincerely, assuring them.

“Already earned the medallion,” Lambert scoffs, not quite a question but Julian answers anyway.

“Well it’s just me left to make decisions about that sort of thing. And they’re quite useful on The Path, are they not? Besides I’d hardly put he-him through the same training as I had.”

(Julian was a marvellous swimmer as a result).

“Besides nothing beats hands on experience. What’s that to spending a night in an underwater cave fighting a sea serpent?” he manages to only sound _slightly_ bitter.

“Is that what Cranes do?” Eskel asks, interested.

“For the final trials, yes. Survive several days in an underwater cave system riddled with all amounts of – well this is a learning opportunity, what creatures _do_ you find in a Kerackian cave system, _Eist_?”

“Uh. Sea Serpents. Kracken? Sometimes Drowners. Water hags. Sirens. Types of mer-people. Wraiths if someone died at sea. Harpies?”

Julian nodded, “Well done. We can get into specifics at a later date. There are different sorts mer-people, for example.”

“Oh fuck, are those the rotfiends?” Lambert asks, gesturing to the heads Julian plonks onto the ground by the base of the nearst tree, “For fucks sake.”

“Once again too late,” Eskel commiserates, “Got to a Griffin just before I did when we met, what year and a half ago, last Autumn?”

“Thought you were a Crane, not a vulture,” Lambert’s still peeved about Ciri’s medallion, Julian can tell.

“You’re welcome to stay for dinner.”

“Is it rabbit again?” Ciri asks.

“I thought you liked rabbit?” Julian asks. He doesn’t understand children. She’d eaten variations on seafood and (experimental) bread for all winter, yet she’s got bored with rabbit already.

“I do,” she assures him, eyes wide.

“I’ve got the herbs you like,” Julian answers, “Anyway, there’s enough for 4.”

Julian sets out prodding to fire and skinning 2 of the rabbits, and Ciri sits down next to him skinning the other two, learning. The two other Witcher’s unload a barrel of gin from Scorpion’s back.

The rabbits roasting, skins set aside for cleaning, they sit around the fire.

“This’ll put hair on your chest, boy,” Lambert says, holding a leather cup of gin out to Ciri.

“Easy,” Julian warns her, he had no objection to her trying it but it would be better for her to go slowly, “You’re far too young for hard drinking.”

“So, what contract ended with you gaining an apprentice?” Eskel asks, “You didn’t have him last year.”

“Uh,” Julian says, they would tell if he’s lying, best stick as close to the truth as possible.

“None of your business,” Ciri says, scowling at Eskel.

Well, that solved that.

“Right,” Eskel says, laughing in surprise, drinking deeply.

Ciri took a sip of her drink, spat it out – wine was more generally served at noble parties – and pulled a face. Julian laughs and plucks the cup from her hands, pours half in his own mug, and tops hers off with the bottled boiled water, “That’ll be less strong, m-lad.”

She scowls at him; he ruffles her stubbly head.

They eat the rabbits. Darkness starts to fall.

“Sing me a song?” Ciri asks after dinner, when they’re leaning against trees, bellies full.

He’s nervous, singing in front of Eskel and Lambert, but he just says, “What sort of song?”

“Something slow,” to send her sleep, she means. She’s almost there already after her watered-down gin.

“Of course,” and he takes a breath and starts to sing.

Ciri settles down on her bed roll and, pulling her hat down over her ears, snuggles down to sleep. Julian waits until her breathing slows before ending the song, he’d repeated and added bits to keep it going as the song went on as she fell asleep.

“Goodnight,” - _princess._

Then he went back to his own patch of ground and lay out his bedroll.

“You are, of course, welcome to stay. I must warn you I talk in my sleep and we have a strict,” _strictish_ , “-routine in the morning that I will not have you interrupting.” With a jolt he realised he almost sounded like himself. Scolding 2 Witchers.

He felt laughter bubble in his ribs.

Oh dear, this was the brink of hysteria.

“Gentlemen, I must retire. Please keep your revelry quiet.”

“Can’t tempt you to gwent?” Eskel offers, politely.

Jaskier, _Julian,_ weakened. He wasn’t a fanatic like Geralt – who asks leatherworkers in backward no name towns for games on a regular basis – but he can play, he even has a deck.

“1 game?” he suggests.

1 game turns to 3 and Jaskier was glad they weren’t playing for coin because he’d be in so much debt if they were.

Ciri woke up halfway through Lambert and Jaskier’s 2nd game. (Eskel had beaten them both, then Jaskier and Lambert had drawn. Eskel would play the winner of his game to determine who was 2nd overall in their little tournament). No surprises she already knew how to play. And cheat. Her alias-namesake had taught her well.

Jaskier won, but only because Ciri had slipped extra cards from his deck into his hand.

Lambert swore, then, “That was some pretty decent sleight of hand,” he said, grudgingly.

Ciri smiled, “I can cheat at knucklebones too.”

“I think really must be bedtime by now or else you’ll be a bear with a sore head tomorrow.”

Ciri grumbled but went to bed all the same.

Jaskier, _Julian,_ Julian lay down also. The sounds of Eskel and Lambert in the camp kept him awake a little while, but eventually he drifted off.

X

“Strict morning routine(?)” Lambert gloated as Julian woke groggily.

“Oh. Fuck off,” Julian said, unable to think of a better comeback. He rose and saw Ciri blinking blearily as well. Neither of them had had nightmares last night, that was good.

He got to his feet, pulled his boots on and redid the top buttons of his navy gambeson – perfect for cool nights and land battles, less so for underwater fights –he had his boiled leather armour for that, or his mutated Witcher skin, he thought bitterly.

He shook himself away from the deep dark road that thought would drag him down, and instead dragged a comb through his hair, Eskel looking on in barely concealed amazement.

“Come on, Ci-Eist, time for drills, or we could spar?”

“Right,” she looked a bit nervous. He sent her what he hoped was a reassuring look; she knew enough. He wasn’t cruel enough to make her spar in front of 2 new Witchers, “Let’s go through the forms we worked on yesterday,”

Eskel and Lambert looked on, impressed. Relief washed through Julian’s stomach. He had been worried he was out of practice by Witcher standards, also he’d thrown in a few Wolf moves he’d observed from watching Geralt fight. Of course they have their own opinions on the best moves but overall it went well. Lambert seemed to have thawed slightly, when the fact that Julian had no intention of restarting the trials sunk in and at the sight of Ciri’s training.

The split up at the crossroads out of the nearest town, Julian collecting the rotfiend pay on his way out. Eskel and Lambert headed west, Ciri and Julian going east towards Kaedwen as planned. They shook hands all around, Ciri thoroughly enjoying the ‘manly’ occupation as a novelty.

Hopefully, 2 wolves down, Geralt to go.

Whilst they were still heading east, a gentle probing of Eskel had revealed Geralt hadn’t returned to Kaer Morhen that winter. That he’d been near Cintra.

No doubt he’d missed Ciri by days and now thought her dead in the destruction of Cintra. Well, on the bright side, if people thought Ciri dead after she’d spent a winter holed up in Kerack, whilst everyone looked for her, it would certainly ease the pressure of hiding her.

Maybe they should get some hair dye?

Things are progressing, not exactly as Julian would have liked – he’d expected to run into Geralt, instead of 2 of his brothers, around about now – but easier than expected.

He takes 3 contracts in 3 weeks, in times of dwindling monsters that’s very good, and on the last contract – giant beetles, eugh, - Ciri had taken down a third of the beetles with Julian’s crossbow. He uses it so infrequently he hands it to her to carry, vowing to get her her own one as soon as he finds one that toes the line between cheap but good quality.

He only really uses it on Griffins, anyway.

They encounter a rare form of necrophage – Hallow , Julian names them – that are easily to eliminated by Igni and a few swipes with this silver sword.

All in all, pretty run-of-the-mill Witcher work.

Also, his mood has improved a little. He had to shave his beard and cut his hair; he’d forgotten that basilisk venom was so pervasive.

He’d held the shield to protect his face from venom – not as a mirror to redirect their gaze, he maybe a poetical Witcher but even he knew that did Fuck All. Seconds before he brought his sword down on the creature’s neck it had spat all over his shield, spots of venom had unfortunately missed and caught in his hair, beard, and amour.

He’d hastily stripped, bits of his hair falling away as the venom ate away at it. When he got back to camp – in a non-basilisk-infested cave -basilisk head and outer armour in hand, he received the look Ciri sent him with resignation.

He shaved, allowing Ciri to watch him and learn – one day she might need to know how. He now had a venom burn scar above his upper left lip. He applied salve to it, trying to stop the spread into his bloodstream.

His hair is patchy, fuck.

“Right, I don’t suppose they teach Princesses hairdressing?”

Julian, technically, knew how to cut his own hair. An old Crane called Karol had been laid up in Roggeveen with a broken leg one winter and had learnt barbery from a barber who didn’t mind Witchers - probably because in his day job he was quite used to performing surgery aside from cutting hair. Karol in turn had come back the following winter and had been left in charge of Julian’s class – 7 of them in total, pre-trials.

The last Crane class.

The 7 of them had been sick of learning to differentiate different types of necrophage when they were more likely, in Kerack, home of pirates – sorry, Privatised Merchants- to come across sea serpents and Kraken - so, he’d sat them all down no front of mirrors and taught them how to cut hair.

(Karol was dead, the year before the raid a royal griffin had ripped his arm off and he’d bled out somewhere near Kovir).

Julian had been cutting his split ends off for the last year but generally he paid a local mother, who’s children had decent haircuts, to trim his hair or he went to Novigrad, Oxenfurt or Vizima to have it styled.

Right now, he had the lost princess of Cintra, trainee Crane, standing beside him with a pair of scissors.

“We can tidy it up at the next village?” she suggested timidly.

It didn’t look wholly terrible when she was done, and he told her so. (It was awful). But the venom hadn’t burnt his skull which was a good thing.

It was just a bit severe, very short at the back and a very straight line of fringe over his forehead.

He would love to say he looked worse but honestly, he didn’t. He sort of looked good. Less growly and more, light.

He’d kept the beard and the hair to hide his scars and had forgotten how nice his face looked. Sort of roguish, with the scars.

He didn’t wholly like it, people still were wary, but with the armour and the face, now he could see it again, he felt more in control and more… admired.

He realised that, whenever he’d, in his more amorous moments, imagined good looking heroic Witchers, Geralt, Eskel, Lambert-ish, even dear departed Artem, he’d never thought of himself in that role. He was just a _bard_ with an ill-fitting first job. Maybe it was a matter of confidence.

And it had been a long time since he’d been accused of a lack of confidence.

He remembered suddenly, before the stares and hate drove him away and the pull of Oxenfurt beckoned, he had quite liked his job. It did, after all, have an element of theatrics. The world was a better place for Witchers now, no small part thanks to himself, people _were_ more accepting. More people saw Witchers as multi-faceted _people._

When his glamour had broken, he’d just reverted back to his 30 year old self, tired of the path, the Blaviken incident fresh on everyone’s mind.

Who’s to really say people wouldn’t mind a Witcher who sang sometimes?

So, all in all he loved his new haircut. He bought Ciri the crossbow he’d planned in exuberant response.

His melancholia hadn’t gone away completely, but he was feeling more himself now. More tethered.

X

Ciri is injured by a drowner just after they pass through the next village.

It’s only a mild injury, a swipe of sharp fins to her forearm, but it still causes Jaskier to panic enough to take her to a healer rather than patch her up himself - which he realises he could do easily when his brain isn’t whited out with worry.

The healer washes and cleans her arm and, either hasn’t noticed the Witcher eyes and swords or is choosing to ignore them, gives Jaskier a needless lesson in suturing.

She also tidies his haircut.

Ciri had killed the drowner, though, so, in all fairness he gives her a 5th of the pay when they produce the 5 heads to the desperate Alderman in the next town. And then he shows her how to haggle with the apothecary when selling the brains and other drowner bits.

She spends all day checking her purse in a way that is sure to attract pickpockets and cutpurses, he warns, but he can’t blame her. He remembers exactly how it was to receive his first pay from his first contract. She tucks her purse carefully in her boot.

They go to the tavern and to his surprise the barman flirts with him, after the initial jolt of ‘yellow eyes’, ‘scary swords’ and ‘scars bisecting his mouth and eyebrows’. If Ciri wasn’t with him, Jaskier – because _who_ said he was dead, _really?_ – most certainly would have pursued the head tilt suggesting an intimate liaison in an attic room.

He regretfully declined and procured a twin room for himself and Ciri. He then heard the barman’s sister bemoan the fact that the bard who’d been staying there for the last week had departed that morning, running out on a large portion of his tab.

“I sing,” he found himself saying, “that is-” Ciri kicked him in the ankle for encouragement, “I have no instrument, but I know a few songs?”

The sister looked dubious. The barman looked a little in love. A Witcher who could _sing_.

“Alright. You sing _and_ get a good reception, you get your dinner on the house, understand? And for the boy, too.”

Jaskier nodded hastily, he’d had similar engagements as a bard

“And tips?” he made sure.

“We keep half,” the sister bargained, no doubt thinking of their last bard.

Well, it was a bit of a shit deal but better than nothing.

“Deal,” and they shook.

It was with a hesitation he hadn’t felt since his first performance at Oxenfurt, concerned that everyone would certainly see through his glamour, that he stood in the centre of the room. He hoped they wouldn’t see him as just a dancing monkey, a Witcher doing tricks, but as the performer he was.

He opened with a song from Kerack about a girl who succumbed to sickness, meaning to draw them in with he power of his voice:

“ _In Kerack’s fair city,_

_where the girls are so pretty,_

_I once set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone…”_

And people listened. Some stared. But the little side room he was performing in quietened right down.

He almost expected bread to be hurled at him, as it sometimes was. A singing _Witcher._

But Ciri clapped along, which seemed to stall any hatred.

Even so he quickly segued into a call and response, an easy one:

“ _O Mary, go and call the cattle home,  
And call the cattle home,  
And call the cattle home,  
Across the sands of Dee…”_

And when they responded, at the appropriate moment:

_“O father, I can’t call the call cattle home,_

_Can’t call the cattle home,_

_Can’t call the cattle home,_

_Father don’t you remember,_

_We’ve moved to Roggeveen_.”

A grin split his face with an abandon he’d forgotten he had. The whole tavern was clapping.

“Any requests?”

It was late when he thought the barman’s sister would be satisfied with his performance enough to allow them their meal. There weren’t may tips, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He felt like he’d been struck by lightning.

He felt so alive.

Dinner was plentiful, people had evidently bought some extra drinks to stay for the performance, or she was just feeling generous. He and Ciri sat in a corner and practically inhaled potatoes, chicken, and sauerkraut washed down with ale – severely watered down for Ciri.

“That was really cool,” Ciri said, looking happier in a public place than he’d ever seen her.

“That’s the first time I’ve felt like myself in a while,” he confessed to her, “Performing was always what I loved best.”

They go to bed in high spirits.

X

Of course, they run into Yennefer again.

“Ye-Dear Lady, how long has it been?” Jaskier says, bowing slightly sarcastic before he sits down at her tavern table.

She groans, but playfully, “Not nearly long enough.” Then she blinks at him, “Pity, I’d just grown used to the idea of you with a beard.”

“And miss showing the world my jawline? Pah!” Though right now the beard would at least keep his face warm, they’re not far from Yspaden and it’s fucking freezing.

“Uh, all healed nicely?” he gestures to her arms.

“What? Oh yes.”

Ciri joins them from where she’d been hanging their gloves by the fire – Jaskier’ll have to keep an eye on them or else they’ll be stolen.

“Who’s this?” she asks, brow furrowed as if trying to place Yennefer.

“Oh, what has this man done to your hair, duckling?” Yennefer says, in a tone Jaskier can’t quite place.

“It’s a _good_ disguise,” he protests then, turning to Ciri, he says in a low voice, “This is Yennefer of Vengerberg, the mage who burnt Sodden. We ran into each other before we went to Craag Caer.”

“I didn’t know _she_ was _Yennefer,”_ Ciri says, somewhat indignant. They shush her. “I had a dream where there was a lot of smoke and a man with white hair was stumbling around a battlefield calling your name.”

“That’d be Geralt,” Yennefer says, sighing, “He’s upstairs, if you must know.”

“You found him?”

“Creating a stir in Redania. Trying to find your body if things are to be believed,” she raised an eyebrow he refused to blush under, “He just got back from hunting a zeugl, he’s sleeping off his potions.”

“Does he…?” Jaskier asks, delicately.

“Yes. I wasn’t going to lie to him about the circumstances I found you alive in, _bard_ ,” she looked vaguely annoyed, “Which is why we’re freezing our arses off in Kaedwen. I had a hunch you’d be passing through.”

“Right.”

~

Jaskier ‘volunteers’, under Ciri and Yennefer’s twin gazes, to take Geralt his supper. They’re getting on like a house on fire, much to his relief.

Jaskier hears Geralt stirring in the room before Jaskier’s even knocks on the door and enters the room in time to witness the other Witcher slump back on the bed.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, sounding fond, almost.

“Geralt.” Geralt doesn’t look bad off, just tired. Which might actually be attributed to Jaskier putting a wedge between Geralt and Ciri, interfering with destiny again. Destiny didn’t like that, see Djinncident – another insomnia laden adventure.

“Now, now,” Jaskier finds himself tutting, “I didn’t travel all the way to Kaedwen to perform minor surgery. You _stay_ , you’ll rip your stitches. Yennefer’s already annoyed - like I can control weather - how mad would she be if you turn into a bloody mess at the mere sight of me?”

He’s rambling slightly, he knows. He places the traces tray on Geralt’s lap.

“Jaskier-”

“Geralt, uh. I’m sorry I never… told you.”

“I knew.”

“What?”

“That you weren’t human. Your glamour was shit.”

“What. No no no nooo, I paid good money for that glamour!”

“You were ripped off then. It made your heartbeat too regular -”

“- it made it human!”

“- whether in the face of a griffin or a werewolf or a paramour, or running from her father, it was always the same heartbeat. You had a resting pulse whilst running, for fucks sake,” Geralt said in his fond, ‘you are an idiot’ voice.

“Ah.” Well fuck. Jaskier sits down on the edge of the bed and scowls. He _had_ paid good money for that glamour, “Anything else?”

“You never bled enough. The glamour kept the wound looking like it would for a human but blood-stained clothes? Not nearly enough.”

“I didn’t think you’d notice,” Jaskier said weakly.

“Of course, I noticed. 22 years Jaskier, or is it Julian?”

“Jaskier. Jaskier was, uh, temporarily dead, but no more. I heard you went to Oxenfurt?” Because where else in Redania was he going to go?

“They think you’re dead.”

“I know. Ran into a former student of mine.”

“Are you going to stay dead?” Stay a Witcher, Geralt means.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sure Yennefer could sort a glamour out for you.”

“Hm,” Jaskier says, then laughs at the irony of it.

“Hm,” Geralt echoes and grinned in the way that would have been a laugh on anyone else.

And quite suddenly they’re laughing at nothing. In relief?

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, “I’m. Sorry.”

Jaskier nods, “Me too. I should have told you. And been a little more considerate, perhaps.”

There’s a knock on the door.

Yennefer enters, “We’re off to bed. We’ve got the twin room across the hall.”

“I’m being abandoned already?!” Jaskier says, he does not squawk thank you very much.

Ciri pokes her head out from behind Yennefer’s billowing skirts.

“Yennefer says you ‘need space’,” she says solemnly but Jaskier knows that twinkle in her eye. Pure mischief.

“Did she now?” he levels Yennefer a glare that she meets with complete indifference.

“I did, yes. You’ve got over 20 years of unresolved issues to air,” she says matter of fact-ly, and she walks over to the dresser and packs up her make-up and other toiletries into a case before emptying the wardrobe – evidently they’ve been here a few days.

Whilst she does this Ciri and Geralt are starting at each other on wonder.

“Hi,” Ciri says, shyly.

“Hello,” Geralt replies, once again trying to sit up, the idiot.

Silence. This was going well.

“You can get acquainted over breakfast,” Yennefer cuts in.

“Yeah, Ciri has questions, I know,” Jaskier cuts in, feeling hollow all of a sudden. His guardianship is at an end now. Geralt’s here.

Ciri must sense his change in mood because she comes all around the edge of the bed to where Jaskier’s perched and hugs him.

“Night night,” she whispers, “See you tomorrow.”

And somehow it _doesn’t_ feel like a goodbye.

“Night,” she bids the rest of the room and leaves. Jaskier can hear her in the next room, getting out her night things.

She’s okay.

“Tomorrow the three of us need a talk,” Yennefer says seriously as she too goes to leave the room.

“Yeah,” Geralt says.

“But tonight, I’ll leave it to the two of you. Keep the noise down.”

Geralt scowls and she actually leaves this time.

“Was she -! How dare she insinuate!” Jaskier splutters, if he could blush he would.

“I couldn’t anyway,” Geralt says blandly, “Potions make it difficult.”

Well Jaskier knew _that._ Personal experience.

“Ah, happens to us all,” and Jaskier swings his legs around onto the bed and leans against the headboard next to Geralt.

“So, you and Yennefer made up?” Jaskier asks, helping himself to a piece of Geralt’s cheese, he’s barely touched it, “Come on, eat up or you’ll waste away.”

Geralt ‘hms’ and picks at his bread, “It’s not perfect. Yen’s trying to find a Djinn to see if the tether can be broken, but otherwise,” he shrugs. Same as usual then, Jaskier deduces.

“Good. That’s good,” Jaskier says, then, “Then why am _I_ in here, and she’s over there with _my_ apprentice?”

Geralt’s looking at him fondly again and Jaskier’s stomach doesn’t quite know what to do with that. His heart is certainly not resting right now. His liver might be doing backflips; if he knew where his liver was.

“Jaskier.”

“She’s an excellent student,” Jaskier’s rambling, talking without a mind to what he’s saying, just trying to distance himself from the heartbreak on the horizon, “We were at Craag Caer this winter. Beat my pretrial personal best! She’s a very good shot. Uh, terrifying voice which our, your, her-own-self, terrifying, sorceress might be able to help with, actually. Took down a drowner not so long ago.”

“You took her on a drowner hunt!!?” Geralt growls, sitting up with a wince and glaring at him.

“Geralt, she can literally kill a man with a scream. Besides The Path is the best classroom.”

“That’s because you have to attention span of a wasp.”

“Who are notoriously dedicated to their craft!” It’s becoming a ridiculous argument, akin to the millions of others they’ve had over the years, but it has battered down the moth making it’s home in his insides, “Now eat your pie.”

Geralt ate his pie, now slightly cold.

“See, now things are looking less bleak, hm?”

Geralt ‘hm’ed, sleepy now he was no longer hungry.

“Time for bed, then,” and Jaskier went through the motions of getting ready for bed, Ciri had helpfully dropped his pack off by the door. He stripped to his small clothes, rubbed moisturiser on his face – much to Geralt’s amusement – and eventually climbed into bed beside Geralt.

Geralt was already dozing.

Jaskier smiled at him, used Aard to blow out the candles, and settled down himself.

He was about to drift off when he felt a finger trace his shoulder.

“Geralt?”

“It’s strange. To see you with scars,” Geralt has turned on one side to look at Jaskier.

“About as strange as seeing you without them, I imagine.”

“What’s this one? You know all mine.”

“Going to compose your own song about them?” Jaskier teased.

Geralt huffed and traced the curve of Jaskier’s shoulder grazing the scar gently.

“That one was actually from a bardic rival in Nazair. I came first place and she took offence to that – she was reigning champion you see…”

“And this one?” Geralt traced the one on Jaskier’s collarbone; suddenly it was very hard to breath.

“A botchling. In Rivia,” he stutters.

“And…?” Geralt smooths his thumb under the basilisk venom scar.

“… basilisk venom. Hurt like no tomorrow,” he breaths, “and I had to shave my beard.”

Geralt ‘hms’ and smooths his hand over Jaskier’s cheekbone, his other hand traces Jaskier’s shoulder, shuffling closer to rest his forehead on Jaskier’s shoulder.

Jaskier feels so very heavy, he hasn’t rested, truly, in months, having to stay alert for Ciri, but with Yennefer in the next room, on guard as it were, he finds himself drifting off again.

“I love you, Jaskier,” Geralt murmurs into his shoulder.

“I love you too, Geralt,” his voice breaks slightly so he rolls onto his stomach and pulls _his_ Witcher towards him. He wants to hold him close to make sure he won’t be gone when he wakes up.

Geralt ‘hms’ contentedly.

X

When Jaskier awakes the next morning, he’s drooling happily against Geralt’s stomach.

Geralt is humming gently, carding his fingers slowly along Jaskier’s scalp.

He realises that it was Ciri, moving about in the next room, that awoke him. It’s Yennefer’s knock that actually rouses him from the bed.

Jaskier opens the door, belatedly realising he’s not wearing much when Yennefer looks him up and down with a raised eyebrow and a slight leer.

“Well now we’re even,” Jaskier says, “I’ve seen your tits, now you’ve seen mine.”

“Not bad bard. Surprisingly not the bag of scrambled egg I was expecting,” she breezes into the room.

“You sure do know how to compliment a fellow,” he closes the door to protect what little modesty he has left. It’s true he’s not ‘built’ by Witcher standards. Crane’s are more for aquatic dynamics and were taught to keep a layer of fat for insulation underwater. So Jaskier’s strong and lithe with good arms and thighs but he certainly does not have washboard abs.

It’s unhealthy to start with.

“Yen,” Geralt swings his leg out of bed.

“All better?” she asks, softly.

He pops his back muscles in response.

They kiss good morning and Jaskier finds his shirt.

“Hey,” Geralt says and hesitantly pulls Jaskier into a kiss as well. Jaskier could get used to this.

“I’ll come back later,” Ciri says from the newly opened door, blushing to her ears.

“No. No. We were just going to breakfast,” and Jaskier pulls his shirt and trousers on, then his gambeson, “Sleep well?”

“Mostly I dreamt of the Nilfgaardian soldier again, but I fell asleep again pretty quickly.””

“That’s good to hear,” and he accepts the hug she offers him.

Over breakfast Geralt tells Ciri about what had happened in Cintra after she’d fled, including confirming Queen Calanthe’s death.

She’d crys into Jaskier’s arm at that and Jaskier lets her, rubbing up and down on her harm soothingly. Geralt grimaces, clearly feeling bad for bringing up bad memories.

“You were in Cintra that day?” Jaskier asks when Ciri has calmed down and is picking at a bread roll.

“Tried to persuade Calanthe to let me take her. They locked me in the gatehouse. Dimeritium bars. Didn’t get out until…” he trails off, awkward in the face of children crying and not wanting to set Ciri off again.

“You came for me?”

“Yes. I. It was time.”

Jaskier rolls his eyes, ‘time’ like Geralt hadn’t spent 12 years avoiding her and his responsibility, but he wasn’t going to put their relationship to a rocky start before it even began so he kept his mouth shut.

“Were you – were you watching me play knucklebones?” Ciri asks him suspiciously, wiping her face and sitting up from her slumped position.

Geralt nods.

Yennefer sighs into her coffee – a delicacy Jaskier had not tried yet but wanted to. Yennefer had given him such a glare when he’d tried to steal a sip he hadn’t tried again. Apparently it aids alertness and concentration. Yennefer just said it would make him unbearable and pulled her mug towards her.

“So what happens how?” Jaskier says. Get it over with, a little anxious voice in his in his throat whispers to him.

“It’s too early to go to Kaer Morhen,” Geralt says.

“And I’m not spending the next 9 months holed up in an empty keep whilst Nilfgaard regroup. They’ll just keep sending scouts and Fringilla hasn’t forgotten about me.”

“Could you teach me? I’ve got this power and I can’t control it? I killed a kikimora without meaning to, what if that happens again?”

Yennefer looks a little dumbstruck for a split second but then, “Shush shush. What is it that you can do? I’ll see if I can help.”

Jaskier tunes them out, not because he’s not interested – he is and greatly concerned – but because Geralt’s fixed him with a raised eyebrow.

“What about you? Where would you have us go?”

“Us?”

“Hm,” Geralt looks at him like he’s an idiot.

Jaskier thinks for a moment. Oxenfurt? Craag Caer?

“Kerack,” he says firmly, thinking of his lute, “I left something rather precious there.”

“And after that?”

“I go where the monsters; my music, and my muse take me.”

“As a bard or a Witcher?”

“Why not both? We make our own Path, after all?”

Jaskier looks at his little family, his life. Ciri, the closest to a daughter he’ll ever have. His Geralt, who he considers his partner, in all ways that matters. And Yennefer, well, he doesn’t know who Yennefer is to him, but it’ll be exciting to find out.

They’ll make their own Path. Together.

And, smiling contentedly, Jaskier sits back in his seat.

Absently he taps a catchy rhythm against his dagger hilt.

Oooh. _That_ could be something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, coupla notes:  
> \- Worldbuilding re: Cranes. I made most of it up. Canonically Cranes seem to come from land across the sea to the West (according to the wiki) but, by the time I'd read that, this had gotten away from me so... Some of the training methods I borrowed from what Geralt undertook at Kaer Morhen.  
> \- Take all monster hunting methods with a pinch of salt, I did do some cursory research but tbh it's all very complicated so I went for style over accuracy.   
> \- The Hallow's and Beetles are from Fable II, the only video game I've ever fully completed.  
> \- Jaskier sings a (slightly edited) version of Molly Malone and a version of The Sands of Dee by Charles Kingsley. The version he sings is one invented by my Grandma. The original poem is depressing, Mary drowns. My Grandmother’s version is much livelier and contains the line ‘We’ve moved to Battersea’ rather than Roggeveen. Kudos + credit to my Grandma. (Don’t ask me what the rest of the song is, my Grandma couldn’t remember).
> 
> Thank you for reading this, I've loved writing it (even if it did take me ages!)  
> Please comment and kudos! Even if it's just keysmashing or an emoji.
> 
> Find me on tumblr @whatkindofnameisvolta


End file.
